


One Night

by winterfool



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Post Trespasser, Romance, so beware spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4823519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterfool/pseuds/winterfool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solas has visited Lavellan's dreams many times, but this is the first time she's spoken to him since learning the truth. </p>
<p>Set post Trespasser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Night

Ninaeve had seen him in her dreams so many times, his presence was no longer a surprise.

She felt him first; a rising awareness at the edge of her senses that she was no longer alone, a kind of prickling along her skin that wasn’t quite a shiver but something close, a subtler variation of the feeling she experienced when magic was being used. Which, she supposed, it must be, in some way, for him to traverse the Fade and enter her dreams the way he did.

Assuming that it truly was Solas, and not simply the manifestation of the longing of a broken heart. 

Whether it was a true vision or not, she ached for him. Her feet itched to turn and run to him, to throw herself at him and cling as tightly as she could as though an iron grip could achieve what pleas and tears and recriminations could not, and keep him with her. She had learned, though, that to do so was fruitless. He was determined to maintain a distance between them; she could give chase and struggle to reach him, but the instant she got too close, he would disappear and she would be left alone once again.

So she settled for half-turning her head, enough to see that tonight he did not wear the wolf form he often took to watch over her but the face she knew so well, whose lines she had traced in the dark with her fingertips. That she still loved, in spite of everything.

Her heart drummed out a painful rhythm against her ribs, but she forced herself to smile. “Savhalla, ma’arlath.”

He never spoke to her. She wasn’t sure why, though she had puzzled over it. Visiting her was already breaking the rules he seemed to have set for himself, so perhaps it was his way of keeping what control he could.

Whatever his reasons, it was a rule Ninaeve refused to abide by any more. The silence burned too much beneath her skin. She accepted, however reluctantly, that he would not let her touch him. But even if he would not speak, she could. And if he was going to haunt her dreams then he could damn well listen to whatever she wanted to talk about. She would remind him that he may have chosen to walk away, but she had not.

Turning away again, she let her eyes wander over the vision of the forests of her home. Trees soared upwards around her, and if she closed her eyes she couldn almost smell their woody scent of them carried on the air. A river ran close by, clear blue water sparkling, a small arrangement of rocks providing a perfect place to sit and admire the view.

“It’s a nice evening, don’t you think?” she said pleasantly, as if this was just another conversation in his rotunda at Skyhold. It was sunset in her dream, the sky afire with yellows and orange, painting the world in a soft golden light. “I haven’t seen this forest for a long time. I had hoped to bring you here you one day.”

There was no response - not that she had expected one - but the silence seemed to deepen behind her, and cloth rustled with movement. She turned. He was still stood at a distance, but his body was angled more fully towards her and she could see the curiosity in the tilt of his head and the quirk of his eyebrow.

“You want to know why this place? My Clan used to camp nearby. I would come to this spot and practise my magic. It was always quiet, free from distractions. And the view didn’t hurt,” she added, smiling.

When she paused, she could feel the change in the air and held her breath, waiting, watching as his eyes slid away across the scenery and his lips began to open.

“The view is certainly spectacular. Quite different to what you have been seeing in Tevinter, I would imagine.”

Triumph surged through her, sweet and sharp.

“Is that your way of asking me where I’ve been? Or perhaps why?” She chose her words carefully, like treading on a tightrope. “I hope you didn’t really think it would be that easy, vhenan.”

“No. I did not.”

His gaze flickered back towards her, and Ninaeve’s heart warmed at the amusement she saw lurking there.

“There’s more I wanted to show you. Walk with me?”

Not waiting for a response, she started making her way up the path that wound back between the trees. After a few moments she heard the footsteps behind her and let out a quiet breath.

It wasn’t too far until the clearing where her Clan would set their camp appeared - and with it, a little to her surprise, the camp itself. The tents and wagons were positions as they had been the last time she had seen them, though the members of her Clan themselves were nowhere to be seen. It was empty, even the paddock where the halla would graze in reality deserted, but it still sent a pang of homesickness through her.

She stopped at the little statue of Fen’Harel that was always set out, facing away from the camp as was tradition. Reaching out, she brushed her fingers over the top of it as she had done a thousand times during her childhood. It was a dream, but she could still feel the rough, worn stone.

“I remember the first time I asked the Keeper why we always placed the statue like this, when she told me the legend of Fen’Harel the Betrayer.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him stiffen. “I thought it was odd. If Fen’Harel really had sealed the gods away, then why pray to them? They couldn’t help. Why not pray to Fen’Harel, since he was the only god left to answer them? Deshanna told me if I said such things I would catch the Dread Wolf’s attention, and then I could find out for myself. That I really would be in trouble. I laughed.”

Drawing her fingers away from the statue, Ninaeve looked up at him.

“It doesn’t seem so funny any more.”

The corners of Solas’ mouth tightened, and he wasn’t quite able to hide the flash of pain in his eyes.

“No,” he said finally, “I do not suppose it would.”

He fell quiet again, his gaze moving over her speculatively. She could see the wheels of his mind turning, even if she could not guess at exactly what his thoughts might be. Even when she had felt closer to him than almost anyone she had never been able to do that; she had learned to read his moods, to decipher his expressions and movements. But his thoughts had always been a mystery.

“Perhaps it is no longer my place to say so, but you are … different, vhenan.”

“My hair’s grown,” she agreed, more than a little flippantly. Wanting some kind of change, she had let the short style she used to keep her hair in grow out, so it now fell a little way past her ears, the ends curling just slightly.

Solas smiled. “So it has. But you know what is not how I meant. _You_ are different, not only your hair.”

“Am I?” 

She considered that. She had been ice when she met him, locked safely behind her cold walls. He had melted her, and then he had burned her. That fire and pain, instead of leaving her ash, had reforged her, made her into steel. She was harder, sharper. But she was less brittle. 

“I suppose so. Experience has a way of changing people. You’re different yourself.”

“That is true,” he acknowledged, bowing his head. “I would have you know, whatever changes you may see, that what you know of me is still true. I omitted the details and circumstances of my past, but I never pretended to be anything other than myself.”

In her moments alone, that was a question Ninaeve had asked herself - was the Solas she had known, had loved, even real, or was it all an act? But she always came back to the same answer.

“I know. I know you were … as honest as you felt you could be.” A wry smile touched her mouth as she leaned back against the statue. “Still. You can’t deny the details you omitted were rather big. And important.”

“I do not deny it. The deception was necessary.”

“At first, maybe. But later?”

Later, when they had begun to realise their feelings. When she had taken him into her heart and into her bed. When she had lain in the dark with her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and dared to picture the future. Had it all truly been necessary then? Or had it just been easier?

Her thoughts must have shown in her face, or maybe just her anger and hurt, because Solas looked away.

“I did consider …” He shook his head. “It is of little matter now. I chose my path. But if I had told you the truth? All of it. What then? What would you have done?”

“If you had told me who you were, I … it would have been a shock. I won’t pretend it would have been easy, but I would have understood. I loved you. I still love you. But if you had told me everything else …” She trailed off, biting down on her bottom lip. This was another question she had wrestled with, and the answer was not nearly as simple.

But Solas already knew that.

“We would have been where we are now,” he finished for her.

Ninaeve nodded. “A version of it, anyway. So I suppose you’re right, and it doesn’t matter now. What matters is where we go from here.”

“And is that your attempt to find out where I am? Or perhaps you hoped I might reveal something of my plans.”

“You assume I don’t already know?”

“You still assume I need saving.”

Ninaeve arched an eyebrow. “You plan to tear apart this world to resurrect one already lost. It is, as you would say, not a subject for debate.”

Solas gave a slow shake of his head. “You think that because all you have seen of my world are remnants. You think you understand, that you feel their loss, but all you see is a beautiful corpse. A melancholy sight, indeed, but a pale shadow of its former self, incomparable to the fullness and vitality of life. Without that basis for comparison, you cannot hope to truly understand that which has been lost. What this world is not.”

“Don’t patronise me, Solas.”

Anger made her words sharp, each syllable a knife point. Anger at him, at herself, at the world for being this way. It was easier to be angry than to think about she knew, with a searing, jagged pain, what she was not. What her people were not.

“Ir abelas, vhenan.” He signed. “That was not my intent. But I know no other way to explain it to you, if indeed it can be explained.”

“Even if it could, it would not change my mind. What you want to do means the death of my people, my friends, my family. You know me. Do you honestly expect me not to fight it?”

A sad smile touched his lips. “No. But I wish you would not.”

“So you’ve said.”

She had moved slowly towards him as they spoke, small creeping steps like she might take towards an animal that might bolt. She wasn’t foolish enough to think he would not have noticed, but he hadn’t stopped her so, with bated breath, she took another step so there were only scant inches of air between them.

It was foolish, and probably self-destructive, but when he was this near to her she couldn’t resist stealing as much closeness as she could. Seeing him like this, hearing his voice wash over her, low and musical, it was - well, not enough. It would never be enough. But it helped, a little.

Solas’s eyes travelled slowly over her, and she could see him softening, the chinks in his armour beginning to show. His gaze fell to her left hand, the hand that no longer existed outside her dreams. Gently he reached out to take it in his, tracing the lines of her fingers and palm. If she had any lingering doubts that it was really him, his touch banished them; she had dreamed of his hands caressing her before but never with such sharpness, or clarity. Never such realness.

“What you have already lost …” he whispered, “I never wanted this for you. You have suffered enough for one lifetime, I think.”

He had said much the same thing before. Bitter amusement rippled through her. “And what would you have me do? Just waiting, counting down the days until the man I love destroys the world, that wouldn’t be suffering? I will not sit around to meet the fate you have decided for me quietly.”

His grip on her hand tightened briefly, then let go.

“I can see my presence is disturbing you. Forgive me. I will leave you in peace.”

Anger gave way to black fear and spiralling panic.

“No! Please, don’t.” She reached to grab his sleeve as he turned away and he paused, eyes meeting hers. She could see her own sadness reflected back at her and sighed heavily. “Ir abelas. I did not speak to you just to fight with you.”

“No?”

“Of course not.” Letting go of him, she rubbed her eyes wearily. Was it possible to get a headache in a dream? “I’m not foolish enough to think I can change your mind in a conversation.”

Solas turned a little way back towards her. Not much, but enough to ease the panic pressing against her chest. “Then what purpose did you have in mind?”

“Why do you visit my dreams?” she countered.

He hesitated, unable to meet her gaze. His carefully controlled expression wavered, guilt and longing warring in the lines around his eyes and mouth.

“I … did not intend to,” he said slowly. “I meant to keep my distance. I told myself it was kinder, especially when you still did not know the truth of who I was. Once I saw you again, however, I no longer had that excuse and I found the desire just to see you was … overwhelming.”

“I had no real purpose in mind,” she offered in return. His eyes lifted back to hers. “I just wanted to speak with you, like we used to do. Perhaps to pretend for a little while …” She shook her head and shrugged, one corner of her mouth quirking upwards. “Mi’nas’sal’inan.”

He was no longer trying to hide the bittersweet pain on his face. Ninaeve knew if she pushed further she was as likely to push him away as to finally break through his walls, but she needed to say the words.

“Ar lath ma.”

“It would be easier for you if you did not.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Tear stang, hot and sharp, behind her eyes. She whirled around, blinking them back. She would not cry in front of him. Not again. “I have tried. For two years, I tried. I cannot. I knew that as soon as I saw you again. That I still loved you. Ar lath ma, whether you like it or not.”

Silence greeted her pronouncement, and for a terrifying moment she thought he had left. Then she felt his hands on her arms, turning her into his embrace. She let him draw her in, burying her head in his chest and curling her fingers into his shirt. For a moment everything else fell away, and there was only the scent of his skin, the feel of his arms holding her and his lips brushing her temple, the familiar steady pulse of his heartbeat.

After a time she lifted her face up, seeking his lips with hers. He obliged, lowering his head to kiss her. His lips were soft, moving slowly against hers. Ninaeve gripped more tightly at him, and he brought his hands up to cradle her face, stroking one thumb across her cheek in a gentle caress. When he broke the kiss he didn’t pull away but rested his forehead against hers and sighed.

“I should go.”

“No.” Ninaeve tried to keep the tremor from her voice. “I know this doesn’t change things. But please. I can’t watch you walk away from me again.”

She felt him tense, hesitating, testing his will before he let himself relax into the embrace and nod. “Ma nuvenin, vhenan. For tonight.”

“For tonight,” she agreed, and kissed him again before either of them could say anything else to dissuade themselves.

One night. Tomorrow she would resume her fight - for her world, for their relationship, for his very soul. And she would fight to her last breath to save him, whether he wanted to be saved or not.

**Author's Note:**

> Although I haven't actually finished my Solasmance playthrough, just playing Trespasser as a befriended Inquisitor left me with a load of Solavellan feels that I needed to get out somehow. So, this happened. 
> 
> Elvhen translations:
> 
> _Savhalla_ \- hello  
>  _Ma’arlath_ \- my love  
>  _Vhenan_ \- my heart  
>  _Ir abelas_ \- I’m sorry  
>  _Mi’nas’sal’inan_ \- I miss you, referring to a deep, profound longing. Lit. "I feel the knife once again in my soul"  
>  _Ar lath ma_ \- I love you  
>  _Ma nuvenin_ \- As you wish
> 
> Elvhen courtsey of [fenxshiral](http://fenxshiral.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also on Tumblr [here](http://lavellenchanted.tumblr.com/post/129310490492/one-night)


End file.
